The Royals continued their superb away form with a 1-0 victory over Charlton at The Valley, taking their tally to 16 points from a possible 18 on the road since the beginning of February and edging them a step closer to the Sky Bet Championship play-offs.

With six games to go, sixth-placed Reading are now five points clear of the four teams immediately outside the play-off spots and Adkins is happy with what he is seeing from his players - especially on their travels.

He said: "We've come away from home and won yet again. We're winning away from home which is important and it's another clean sheet. Charlton play some really good football but I thought we had a good defensive shape about us and had to go and grind out the game.

"We score some fantastic counter-attacking goals and we're a massive threat with the pace that we've got in the team. I thought Danny Williams had an excellent game today and scored an excellent goal driving from midfield.

"We'll just focus on the six games left. You can see there's a spirit and a confidence about the players."

Despite their success away from home, Reading have struggled at The Madejski Stadium where they have picked up just three points from 18 available since February.

"If you give bad goals away like we have done, you won't win games of football - I think that's the top and bottom of it, " Adkins said.

"We only lost one game in March so it's not like we've been losing games but there's been too many draws. We've got players coming back from injury too - it was great to see Wayne Bridge on the bench today."

Reading won the game thanks to Danny Williams' third goal of the season in the 74th minute. The first half of the match had failed to provide a goalscoring opportunity for either side but Reading deserved their win on the balance of the second-half action.

Royston Drenthe should have scored from a corner and Danny Guthrie's free-kick forced a fine save from Ben Hamer. The visitors' pressure then told as Guthrie's weighted pass found Williams who smashed the ball into the net from 12 yards out.

Charlton manager Jose Riga, whose side are just outside the relegation places, said: "We knew the difficulty of playing a team that didn't play three days ago as we had to do and certainly a team based on good organisation, good strikers and good counter-attacking.

"Before the game it was not an easy mission but we did it well - certainly for an hour. I think we had control of the game.They didn't create a lot of chances but then we didn't create a lot.

"We didn't really see the difference between a team busy with the play-offs and one busy with relegation so I'm sure the players have done what they have to do, but one mistake and you're punished."